Women anchors are left to clean mess left by males

Nowadays the rise to the top comes in wake of frat-boy behavior

BY TRACEY O'SHAUGHNESSY
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

Co-anchors Hoda Kotb, left, and Savannah Guthrie embrace on the set of the “Today” show Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, in New York, after NBC News fired host Matt Lauer. NBC News announced Wednesday that Lauer was fired for “inappropriate sexual behavior.” (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)FILE – In this Oct. 24, 2017 file photo, Charlie Rose attends New York Magazine’s 50th Anniversary Celebration at Katz’s Delicatessen in New York. Rose, who was fired this week by CBS News and PBS in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women, has now lost accolades from two universities. Both Arizona State University and the University of Kansas announced the decisions Friday, Nov. 24, 2017. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)This Nov. 8, 2017 photo released by NBC shows Matt Lauer on the set of the “Today” show in New York. NBC News fired the longtime host for “inappropriate sexual behavior.” Lauer’s co-host Savannah Guthrie made the announcement at the top of Wednesday’s “Today” show. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via AP)This Nov. 16, 2017 photo released by NBC shows Matt Lauer during a broadcast of the “Today,” show in New York. NBC News fired the longtime host for “inappropriate sexual behavior.” Lauer’s co-host Savannah Guthrie made the announcement at the top of Wednesday’s “Today” show. (Zach Pagano/NBC via AP)

Where is Diane Sawyer when you need her? You remember Sawyer, the polished network anchor who was only given the coveted anchor spot at ABC World News when the nightly news no longer mattered.

In the minds of the patriarchy in the upper echelons of news management, viewers wanted a male voice to register authority, integrity.

Gravitas.

NBC’s abrupt firing of “Today” show anchor Matt Lauer Wednesday after allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior followed that of Charlie Rose, Lauer’s counterpart at CBS. It was swiftly followed by the dismissal of Garrison Keillor, host of public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” over similar allegations.

Who knows, by the time you finish this column, another national treasure will tumble into the widening abyss of disgrace.

And the female anchors who remain will be left to clean up their mess.

The great feature of morning news programs – where the networks make their biggest bucks – is that they are broadcast live.

That meant viewers were able to watch in real time last week, as Nora O’Donnell and Gayle King reported that Rose, with whom they had exchanged urbane repartee only the day before, was felled by accusations of sexual harassment that were, in their specificity, pretty darn gross. (Among other allegations, Rose was accused of inviting women to his home and prancing about in the nude.)

So there were Nora and Gayle, put in the uncomfortable position of documenting the story and offering their own levels of astonishment – from King, a bewildered disappointment, and from O’Donnell, chagrin mixed with barely disguised rage. Staring into the camera with steely grace, she said: “This has to end.”

But it did not end. Within a week, her distaff competitor at “Today,” Samantha Guthrie, was left choking back tears and holding the hand of colleague Hoda Kotb, who had been called in as a last-minute replacement for Lauer, fired only minutes before by NBC.

“This is a sad morning at NBC News,” Guthrie began, reporting the announcement. “I’m heartbroken for Matt,” she said. “He is my dear, dear friend and my partner.” She then quickly offered comfort to the “brave colleague” who brought the initial charges against him.

Al Roker and Kotb sat nearby, looking as if both had been impaled by the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

It was great television but uncomfortably intimate.

The power of the network morning shows is the aura of familial comity the hosts project. Here are all your best friends, sipping coffee with you at the breakfast nook as they tell you about the latest terrorist attack or the cleverest way to introduce kale to your toddler. It’s a faux family, of course, presided over by a paternal figure of equal parts humor and intelligence who holds your hand through the whole thing.

Mass media offered up all kinds of flavors for audiences – O’Reilly, the bully outraged enough to tackle your nemesis; Rose, the debonair sophisticate ready to squire you to the cotillion; Keillor, the avuncular shaman about as sexy as a cardigan sweater; Lauer, the metrosexual charmer, gamely slipping himself into spandex to ride the luge with pal Al Roker.

Good ol’ Matt was up for anything.

Maybe a little too much of anything.

Among the charges brought against Lauer include one by a former employee who told The New York Times he summoned her to his office in 2001 and sexually assaulted her until she passed out.

In their wake are a slew of female journalists whose job has become tidying up after those nasty frat boys whose inexcusable behavior they are put in the position of excusing.